If only there were some sort of field of study that could have predicted this.
7 thoughts on “Hospital Emergency Rooms”
I don’t know about this. Around here, we have stand along emergency room places opening up on nearly street corner. Admittedly, the boom was from Obamacare. I suspect it is because most consumers don’t want to go to a doctor’s office and wait to be seen. So they think they can go to the ER and be seen immediately. The difference is $20 copay versus $100 copay. And since most people only want drugs (either opiates or just antibiotics), $100 covers the nurses time, because that is all you are likely to see in these corner ERs.
But yeah, full hospitals in low income neighborhoods have ERs that are usually a Net loss to the hospital, and most would go out of business if not part of a large system of hospitals that make money bilking, err I mean milking, err I mean getting the rich to pay their fair share.
I suspect it is because most consumers don’t want to go to a doctor’s office and wait to be seen. So they think they can go to the ER and be seen immediately.
Our area has always had minor emergency or doc in a box for as long as I can remember, so I couldn’t imagine going to the ER for something that wasn’t a serious emergency. They do cater to people without a primary physician or who need to get in right away and can’t wait a couple weeks or months. They also charge out the nose. It is incredibly expensive.
Doctor on demand charging a premium can make sense, but I’m not sure the price is a reflection of cost and since they target lower income communities, it could be predatory in some cases.
I’ve found the quality of care isn’t always the best at them. My Dad went to one with a dislocated jaw and they turned him away and told him to drive to the real ER. Makes sense right? Would have made more sense if they asked if he has someone who could drive him rather than send some old dude who couldn’t talk because his jaw was dislocated and was in immense pain out into traffic. I was pretty pissed as I was already on my way.
Trading horror stories about the one we used in college was common too.
I spent the most physically painful 2 hours of my life in the emergency room waiting area with a kidney stone. It was at 10pm at night at a large hospital in a high income area. The room, however, evoked thoughts of a Guadalajara bus station as I waited for the people in front of me to get their cough medicines and their kids with stomach flu looked after.
Oddly enough, urgent care centers don’t look like that at all, because you have to pay to use them, even if it’s just a copay.
My insurance goes back and forth on this but it’s usually cheaper for me to go there than to an ER. That wouldn’t stop me from going to one if I had a problem an urgent care center couldn’t handle (and in my experience, if they can’t, they’ll say so.)
I’d rather pay to be seen at Urgent Care than wait to be seen at the ER. Free market in action!
I don’t know about this. Around here, we have stand along emergency room places opening up on nearly street corner. Admittedly, the boom was from Obamacare. I suspect it is because most consumers don’t want to go to a doctor’s office and wait to be seen. So they think they can go to the ER and be seen immediately. The difference is $20 copay versus $100 copay. And since most people only want drugs (either opiates or just antibiotics), $100 covers the nurses time, because that is all you are likely to see in these corner ERs.
But yeah, full hospitals in low income neighborhoods have ERs that are usually a Net loss to the hospital, and most would go out of business if not part of a large system of hospitals that make money bilking, err I mean milking, err I mean getting the rich to pay their fair share.
Our area has always had minor emergency or doc in a box for as long as I can remember, so I couldn’t imagine going to the ER for something that wasn’t a serious emergency. They do cater to people without a primary physician or who need to get in right away and can’t wait a couple weeks or months. They also charge out the nose. It is incredibly expensive.
Doctor on demand charging a premium can make sense, but I’m not sure the price is a reflection of cost and since they target lower income communities, it could be predatory in some cases.
I’ve found the quality of care isn’t always the best at them. My Dad went to one with a dislocated jaw and they turned him away and told him to drive to the real ER. Makes sense right? Would have made more sense if they asked if he has someone who could drive him rather than send some old dude who couldn’t talk because his jaw was dislocated and was in immense pain out into traffic. I was pretty pissed as I was already on my way.
Trading horror stories about the one we used in college was common too.
I spent the most physically painful 2 hours of my life in the emergency room waiting area with a kidney stone. It was at 10pm at night at a large hospital in a high income area. The room, however, evoked thoughts of a Guadalajara bus station as I waited for the people in front of me to get their cough medicines and their kids with stomach flu looked after.
Oddly enough, urgent care centers don’t look like that at all, because you have to pay to use them, even if it’s just a copay.
My insurance goes back and forth on this but it’s usually cheaper for me to go there than to an ER. That wouldn’t stop me from going to one if I had a problem an urgent care center couldn’t handle (and in my experience, if they can’t, they’ll say so.)
I’d rather pay to be seen at Urgent Care than wait to be seen at the ER. Free market in action!
This is also a problem, “What if people behaved outside the ER as the do inside the ER“.
I’ve heard stories. People do behave that way outside of the ER. The difference is that their behavior gets corrected real fast.